The Consequences of Reading Bad Poetry
by Dahlia
Summary: An anonymous love note, doused in horrible, horrible perfume. A person, showing up in exactly the wrong place, at exactly the wrong time. Hilarity ensues. [One-shot]


**Disclaimer: It all belongs to JKR, and I'm not making any money of off it. And as I'm a poor, poor university student, there's really no point in suing me. Really.**

A big thanks to Autumnmist and Autumn from WIKTT for agreeing to beta for me on the spur of the moment, and also to Susanna (pigwidgeon37) for her lovely little fic, _I Never Thought It Would Be You, which inspired me to finish this story in the manner I did. _

I'd like to dedicate this to all the procrastinators out there, as I really should be finishing my paper due tomorrow, not dicking around with fanfic. And without further ado, on with the story!

~*~

_The Consequences of Reading Bad Poetry_

__

A Strange Tale by Dahlia

_The tale is a warning, and carries advice, _

_Though the moral might not be quite so precise._

_Words possess power, as we have been told, _

_And their consequences are truly a thing to behold;_

_ From pushing Snape's mind to the verge of collapse_

_To a vision of Draco, in black leather chaps._

~*~

Snape sat in his office, a baleful glare fixed on a very out-of-place pink envelope that lay innocuously on his desk. It had been lying on the floor, just beyond the door of the Potions' room, when he arrived 10 minutes earlier. It was Friday evening now, and he had planned to use these peaceful hours to prepare for his classes next week.

It smelt faintly of flowery perfume, and his given name was written on the front of it in curly, cursive script. Surrounded by pink little hearts. Little pink hearts that danced with a manic energy across the parchment whenever he looked at it.

Despite his best efforts, the envelope stubbornly refused to spontaneously combust, and merely lay there, in front of him, trying to look innocent.

Finally, mustering his courage, Snape poked it with his wand.

Nothing happened. The little hearts continued darting about enthusiastically.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up the obscene thing with his thumb and forefinger, as though it were a particularly repellent side effect of one of Neville Longbottom's accidents.

Snape idly wondered how many washings it would take to rid his hands of the foul perfume as he slid the back flap up, and plucked a folded piece of parchment from the innards of the envelope.

The stench of dead flowers increased ten-fold and the Potions' Professor desperately wished for a window to open so as to allow some fresh air to circulate.

Tossing the envelope aside, Snape unfolded the parchment and stared.

Written in the same curly script was a poem.

What sort of poem was slightly harder for him to establish.

_Some men are lovely, others gentle and kind_

_It's not one of these who befuddles my mind_

_I will not spout compliments, be they false or true_

_I just needed to say that I want to fuck you._

Snape stared dumbly at the note.

It was then, according to the laws of Plot Development, that there was a knock on the door.

Snape jumped, and after a motionless, panic-stricken moment, hurriedly crumpled the note into a small ball and shoved it in a desk drawer.

"Enter," he growled, mildly relieved that his voice didn't betray the abject horror he felt.

The door swung partially open to reveal a nervous Hermione Granger.

Snape stared at the girl for a beat, while somewhere in his head a light bulb clicked on. Or rather, one would have, had he been familiar with electricity.

A slow, evil grin spread across his face.

"Miss Granger," he purred, "are you going to stand in my doorway all day?"

Hermione blinked a few times, resisted a sudden instinctual, _irrational urge to run away _very_ fast, and stepped into the office. The door swung shut behind her. She eyed Snape nervously – his Cheshire grin was making her rather uncomfortable._

"Erm…I just wanted to ask you about the homework for next week, sir," she stammered.

Snape's grin widened.

"Of course you did," he said smoothly, and left it at that.

Hermione blinked again. The urge to run away was getting stronger by the second. She cleared her throat nervously and glanced down at the sheets of parchment in her hand.

"You asked us to write 5 feet on the development of Veritaserum for Tuesday's class, but the topic is just so broad I don't know if I can keep my parchment that short, and I was wondering if…" Hermione looked up and trailed off.

Snape was alternately watching her in the same manner a cat watches a cornered mouse, and trying to get a clear look at the papers in her hand. The girl blinked a few times, and cleared her throat again.

Snape hadn't actually been listening to a word she said. It was quite clear to him what was going on. This impetuous child was trying to not-so-subtly seduce him. This homework business was _obviously_ a ruse. A Gryffindor, attempting subterfuge? Snape snorted aloud.

Hermione watched with growing trepidation as the Potions' Master laughed for no reason at all. She wasn't sure which was worse – the fact that he was spontaneously reacting to stimuli invisible to her (and most likely, the rest of the universe), or that he actually _laughed_.

She decided now would be a good time to listen to her instincts.

"Erm…you seem preoccupied, Professor. I think I'll just leave you to your work, I'm sure I can compress my essay easily, no problem at all," she babbled, edging closer to the exit, carefully watching the seemingly-oblivious man. And she almost made it, too.

Moving faster than should have been possible, Snape was suddenly directly in front of her, one hand firmly against the door, and right beside her head. Hermione squeaked and flattened herself against the dark wood. The professor glowered down at her.

"Oh no, Miss Granger. I wouldn't want you running off so quickly. I believe we have some things to…discuss," he purred, a slightly insane glint in his dark eyes.

Hermione squeaked again and clutched her notes tighter against her chest.

"Do you really think I would be so easily seduced, Miss Granger?" he hissed. "You trot in here, pathetically attempting to feign innocence. You Gryffindors most certainly possess bravado, but in regards cunning and slyness?" He snorted again.

Hermione decided then that he had most certainly gone mad. Utterly nutters. And how the _fuck_ did he know she, embarrassingly, found him kinda-sorta-maybe attractive. In a repulsed, masochistic way, of course.

Snape was ranting on about flowery perfume now, and Hermione merely watched, her eyes large as saucers, as her Potions professor grew more and more unhinged. Oddly enough, his office _did_ smell a bit…odd. Like formaldehyde and dead lilacs.

Snape paused his diatribe to take a breath, and looked down at the girl. She seemed frozen, like a deer caught in the headlights. It was strangely arousing, the way her eyes seemed as though they were about to fall out of her head.

Already having given up this day for lost, Snape mentally shrugged and leaned in closer. Though Hermione lacked the ability to make herself smaller at will she was doing her damnedest to learn. Flattening herself against the door more than would be considered humanly possible, she winced and prepared for the worst, screwing her eyes shut in the vain hope that the old if-I-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me theory would work.

She could tell Snape was alarmingly close to her by the soft puff of warm air on her cheek.

"Your charming little poem was horribly inappropriate, Miss Granger," he hissed, "and if you ever attempt anything like that again, I will see that you are punished…appropriately."

Hermione had never before heard a more innuendo-laden phrase. Her eyes snapped open, huge and terrified, but also a bit morbidly curious. Snape grinned, shark-like.

She squeaked again, then found her voice. "B-b-but Professor, I never sent you – "

"Don't even attempt to lie, girl," he snapped, "I can _smell_ that atrocious perfume on you."

Something snapped inside of Hermione, and the utter ridiculousness of the situation became blaringly obvious.

"Sir, your entire office and everything in it smells of rotting roses and vinegar. After being here for a few seconds I started to smell like that as well, and probably will continue to smell this way for the rest of the week."

For a breathless, life-flashing-before-her-eyes second, Hermione stared up at Snape in horror, amazed at her daring, and watching his face go through a few remarkable colour changes.

"Get. Out." he whispered.

She ran.

~*~

Hermione fell through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor common room in a daze. Her eyes had a disturbingly glassy sheen to them, and there was a tick working in her left cheek. Harry and Ron, who had been playing wizard chess in front of the fire, stared at her in shock.

She sat down heavily between them and dropped a roll of parchment on the board, scattering a few pieces, which got up angrily and made rude gestures at her. Neither boy moved, but Ron began to open his mouth. Hermione held up a hand, her eyes still unfocused and staring blankly off into the distance.

"Don't ask. Ever."

Ron shut his mouth, and gave Harry a nervous look. But Harry was still staring at Hermione, a bit suspiciously this time. She smelt odd. Like a rat decaying on a bed of violets. For some reason, it conjured up pleasant memories. Gears in his head began turning, and suddenly clicked into place.

Ron was now snapping his fingers in front of Hermione's face, with no perceptible results. Harry jumped out of his chair and ran up the stairs to his dormitory. He was relieved none of the other boys were there, and he dropped to his knees in front of his trunk, flipping the lid up and rooting around under his clothes.

When he pulled his hand out of the depths, it was clutching a sheaf of parchment, still bearing the faint scent of that wretched perfume, despite numerous cleansing and banishing charms, not to mention a slew of random spells that had been attempted in fits of desperation.

He pressed the papers to his face, inhaling deeply. True, he gagged for a moment afterwards, but the dreamy, loving sparkle in his eyes was only _partially_ due to their involuntary watering at the staggeringly strong smell.

Harry ran a finger lovingly along the topmost sheet, and read the short verse written there;

_Eyes green as seaweed,_

_Hair black as night_

_I'd like to give your_

_Tight arse a bite._

Harry swooned slightly, oblivious to the effect simply reading a poem this bad could have on the universe (for example; five aspiring poets suffered horrible nightmares, and gave up writing forever, two rival literary critics, each for prominent London newspapers, suffered fatal heart attacks and died within minutes of each other, and a Mr. Nigel Wellington of Banbury, in a rare demonstration of randomly occurring magic, was trampled to death in his own sitting room by a raging herd of Bad Similes).

After a moment of mindlessly blissful reflection, Harry sobered up, and a grimace of pain crossed his face.

It _had_ been the same perfume. But _Hermione_? Especially when it seemed to clear that…

Harry looked mournfully at the scrawled signature at the bottom of the page, and sighed.

"Draco, how could you?" he whimpered.

~*~

Snape paced the width of his office like a caged animal, muttering to himself. The sadly-crumpled love note lay on his desk, smelling for all the world like a dead skunk dipped in cheap perfume. The envelope, still lying on the floor, looked as though it had been stepped on repeatedly. The little pink hearts were still moving, but now seemed to hobble across the parchment rather than dance.

Snape paused mid-stride beside the envelope and snarled viciously, bringing his heel down on it, attempting to grind it and its little pink hearts into dust. Most scampered out of the way, but one heart, not as fortunate as its brothers, was caught. It emitted a tinny wail from beneath Snape's boot.

He smirked in satisfaction for a brief moment, then flung himself into his chair, scowling at the letter. 

The Laws of Plot Development kicked in again, and there was another knock on the door. Snape leapt out of his chair and snatched both the envelope and letter up. Looking frantically for a somewhere to conceal them, he panicked when there was another knock, louder this time.

Hiding his hands behind his back and trying to look inconspicuous, he called "Enter."

The door opened a crack and Draco Malfoy slipped through. Snape groaned inwardly.

_'Merlin's balls, not the whinging, inbred half-wit. What have I done to deserve this?'_

Draco, smirking widely, was sauntering across the office, towards the professor. Snape, hands still behind his back, slid around his desk and sat down, neatly dropping the envelope and parchment into a half-open desk drawer. Oddly enough, Draco looked mildly put off for a moment, before pasting a winning smile across his sniveling, aristocratic face.

"What can I do for you, Malfoy?" It was all Snape could do to keep the snarl out of his voice.

Draco batted his eyelashes and winked. _Winked. Snape stared, a horrifying, vague suspicion starting to creep up his spine._

"Well sir," Draco purred, "I  was actually thinking I could, perhaps, do something for you."

Before he could open his mouth to speak, Snape was treated to the sight of Draco Malfoy tearing off the loose robes he had on, revealing a pair of tight, black leather chaps and a studded leather thong.

Snape, frozen in horror and shock, could only manage a pitiful keening, sounding for all the world like a wounded animal.

Draco, seizing his chance, dove under the desk (which conveniently lacked a front panel), and busily started rummaging around under Snape's robe.

The Laws of Plot Development seemed to be concentrating heavily on Hogwarts that day, for at that moment Harry Potter burst through the door of the office. Snape, who had been frozen in terror up till that moment, jumped out of his chair and threw himself into a corner, clearly wanting to get as far away from Draco as possible.

Harry jumped as Draco crawled out from under Snape's desk.

"Draco, what the hell are you doing!?" he wailed.

Draco shrugged and glared at his apparently ex-lover.

"You were messing around with the Weasel, so I decided to get my own back."

Snape whimpered in the corner. Both boys ignored him.

"I was not!" Harry cried, "I never have! You've just always been jealous that we're friends, but that's _all it's ever been. Baby, you're the one for me."_

Draco looked torn for a moment, and glanced back at the cowering Snape. He shrugged, then grabbed Harry and gave him a good snog. "C'mon then, let's go find somewhere we can be alone," he said with a smirk.

"How did you find me anyways?"

"Well, Hermione came in smelling like that perfume you use, and at first I thought you were messing around with her," Harry said, ignoring the horrified looks from Draco, "so I started grilling her, and she muttered something about Snape's office, so I rushed down."

Draco nodded, then stopped.

"Wait. What was Granger doing in Snape's office?"

Harry made a gagging noise. "I didn't ask, and I don't think she would have told me anyways."

Both boys shivered, then headed off to find an abandoned classroom.

Snape whimpered quietly in his corner.

~*~

Hermione whimpered quietly under her sheets.

She was well aware that not only was she being childish and irrational, but that she was also scaring her housemates. Lavender and Parvati had fled 10 minutes after a still shell-shocked Hermione had staggered into the dormitory and crawled into her bed. She supposed it had something to do with the constant, pitiful whimpers coming from behind the closed hangings of her bed. But fuck it if she didn't deserve _some semblance of pity or compassion. Hermione paused, mid-snivel, and sat up._

"Hold on. I haven't gotten _any comfort," she said in disbelief._

Harry had scampered off to his dorm almost immediately after she had returned to the common room. He returned a minute later, muttering unintelligible syllables to himself, before dragging her off to the side and asked what perfume she was wearing. She just shook her head, muttered something about Snape's office, and slunk back to her chair. Harry had run off, muttering again. Ron had poked her a few times, then wandered away when the appeal of Catatonic-Hermione wore off. And her estrogen-laden roomies hadn't even tried to pry into her personal business (as they usually did) by feigning concern. Oh no, they had just snuck out, probably to find some boys to molest.

Her indignation quickly replacing any feelings of self-pity, Hermione threw back the sheets and crawled angrily out of bed.

She stalked to the washroom and splashed cold water on her face, then glared at her reflection in the mirror.

Her friend's responses really weren't all that sueHerrprising when she thought about it. Harry had become increasingly unhinged this semester, and Ron, well, Ron had always been an immature, oblivious, emotionally-retarded prat. And the fact that Lavender and Parvati hadn't harassed her for a play by play of what happened wasn't exactly a bad thing.

No, what it really boiled down to was Snape. Arrogant, mildly psychotic, sadistic, bullying, darkly sexy Snape.

Hermione back-tracked quickly, struck the final point from the record, and proceeded with her mental ranting.

It was all his fault! What right did he have to arouse her like…arouse?

Hermione closed her eyed, took a deep breath, and screamed.

Minutes later, the dust had settled in the common room. Seamus climbed out from behind an over-turned chair. Neville crawled out from beneath a table. Ginny poked her head out from behind a wall hanging. They all stared at the slowly-closing portrait hole, and listened to the protests of the Fat Lady.

"Was that…Hermione?" Ginny finally asked.

Seamus nodded, once, his eyes distant and empty.

Neville started looking for Trevor.

~*~

The door to Snape's office was thrown open, and Hermione, furious and determined, stood menacingly in the doorway.

"Right, Snape, you slimy bas…" She pulled up short once she realised he wasn't sitting at his desk. Hermione looked around, confused, until she heard a noise from one of the darker corners of the room.

"Professor?" she asked, taking a few steps toward the shivering figure curled up on the floor. She tentatively reached out and tapped what she thought was a shoulder.

Snape jumped, then began babbling on about Draco, Harry, black leather, and love notes. Hermione listened with growing amazement and anger – anger which was, strangely enough, directed towards Draco.

"No one deserves to see that perverted little git in leather. It's just too cruel," she muttered, as Snape started rocking back and forth.

Hermione sighed, and conjured up a cup of tea. She tapped Snape a few times, and when it was clear he wasn't responding, she put the cup on the floor, well out of the way, and slapped him. Hard.

Snape froze for a moment, before jumping up in a swirl of fury and black robes. While he was trying to make a sound other than an indignant splutter, Hermione calmly picked the teacup up, and pushed it into his hands. Snape stared dumbly at it for a moment, then took a long gulp.

"Thank you, Miss Granger," he muttered after he'd swallowed.

Hermione nodded, and crossed her arms, clearly waiting for something. Snape eyed her over the rim of the cup.

"You may leave now," he snapped, making it clear that this wasn't a suggestion.

She just shook her head and returned his glare. "I think you owe me an apology, Professor."

Snape scowled. "And what has caused you to labour under that misapprehension?"

"The fact that you may have caused me grievous mental and emotional harm – I'm not sure I'll ever recover, really," Hermione said primly, perching on the corner of his desk.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

"Get out." Snape snarled, finally.

Hermione smirked, and flicked her wand in the direction of the door, murmuring a charm under her breath. 

Snape covered the distance to the door in less than five seconds, and rattled the knob vainly. He turned and began advancing on her, managing to look even more malevolent than usual.

"Open. The. Door."

"Oh no. That worked earlier, but only because you caught me off guard," Hermione murmured, "but I'm not scared of you now. Partly because I'm still quite furious, and partly because I just saw you sobbing like a girl."

Snape, his face inches from hers, turned an interesting shade of purple, and opened his mouth.

"Yes," Hermione said, "keep your mouth just like that."

And she kissed him.

~*~

"Miss Granger?"

"I think you can call me Hermione now."

"Indeed. I believe that thing you just did is illegal in most countries."

"Really?"

"Perhaps not. But it should be."

"…"

"…Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you might perhaps do it again?"

~*~


End file.
